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Upcycling PET in parallel with energy-saving H2 production via bifunctional nickel-cobalt nitride nanosheets

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Abstract

We describe here an electro-reforming strategy to upcycle polyethylene terephthalate (PET) waste with simultaneous hydrogen production by a bifunctional nickel-cobalt nitride nanosheets electrocatalyst. PET plastics are digested in alkaline solution giving an electrochemically active monomer ethylene glycol (EG). The introduction of Co in Co-Ni3N/carbon cloth (CC) promotes the redox behavior of Ni2+/Ni3+, which is beneficial for EG oxidation at an ultra-low potential (1.15 V vs. reversible hydrogen electrode (RHE)) and breaks through the limitation of high catalytic potentials of simple Ni-based electrocatalysts (1.30 V). In PET hydrolysate with Co-Ni3N/CC couples, an integrated EG oxidation-hydrogen production system achieves a current density of 50 mA·cm−2 at a cell voltage of 1.46 V, which is 370 mV lower than the conventional water splitting. The in-situ Raman and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopies and density functional theory (DFT) calculations identify the catalytic mechanism and point to advantages of heterostructure engineering in optimizing adsorption energies and promoting catalytic activities for EG oxidation.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 22072107 and 21872105), the Science & Technology Commission of Shanghai Municipality (No. 19DZ2271500), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Shanghai Key Lab of Chemical Assessment and Sustainability, School of Chemical Science and Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai, 200092, China

    Xuan Liu, Dengke Xiong, Shuaiqi Gong, Yanli Niu & Zuofeng Chen

  2. State Key Laboratory of Electroanalytical Chemistry, Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun, 130022, China

    Zhongying Fang & Wei Chen

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  1. Xuan Liu
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  2. Zhongying Fang
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  3. Dengke Xiong
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  4. Shuaiqi Gong
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  6. Wei Chen
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  7. Zuofeng Chen
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Correspondence to Zuofeng Chen.

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Liu, X., Fang, Z., Xiong, D. et al. Upcycling PET in parallel with energy-saving H2 production via bifunctional nickel-cobalt nitride nanosheets. Nano Res. 16, 4625–4633 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-022-5085-9

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